Digimon: AR Monsters

I'm going digital

Hey, all! Just wanted to post a little concept work for a comic I would like to do at some point in the future. It has kinda grown out of the "Classic Digimon" concept I had posted about earlier. It draws inspiration from a number of other stories, shows, and games (most notably Dennou Coil, Digimon World, and Pokemon Go), but the Digimon connection was initially sparked by the use of the "AR Field" in Appmon, though conceptually they only share the use of the term "AR" (short for Augmented Reality, for those who don't know).

The setting is in the near-future, when AR technology is more advanced and more commonly used. A couple of phenomenon connected to this advance in technology are key to the background of the story. First is that toys and gadgets in this age are almost always designed to interact with corresponding AR apps, which are installed in the glasses everyone wears. Second is that there had been a recent trend in owning and raising virtual pets on your AR glasses. They would appear to act like normal pets, but cost significantly less in upkeep, which was a definite bonus in a failing economy. (The country this takes place in is America, btw, since I know it best. ^^' ) Recently, people have taken to more exotic AR pets, and young people in particular are attracted to what are called AR Monsters. One particular brand, a revival of an old virtual pet series known as Digimon, has gained great popularity.

The mechanics of the game are similar to the Digimon World games (Digimon World 1, Re: Digitize, Next Order), except that they're overlayed on the real world, and there is less focus on quests and such. Parks and notable places become training areas or areas you can fight other Tamers and even wild Digimon. (Yes, not unlike Pokemon Go.)

Since the story is mainly a kind of tribute to the early days of Digimon (in particular C'mon Digimon and V-Tamer), the Digimon shown in the story are limited initially to the original V-Pet roster, but later also include the Pendulum roster, and possibly some beyond that. It focuses on a kid who has raised the worst Digimon in his neighborhood, but winds up representing his whole area in the running for the national tournament. He is pressured into competing by almost every other kid he knows, but a couple of them come to his rescue and help him figure out how to strengthen his monster. While this is going on, though, rumors of hacker tamers and Digimon appearing in areas where they shouldn't begin to reach their neighborhood...

And now to the actual art! ^^'

Concept for one of the main male characters. He is the kind and cool kid who helps our poor protagonist figure out this whole Digimon thing. He's known for being one of the better tamers in the area.

Concept for our poor protagonist. Not much done one him yet, but I know who his partner is! ^^' The whole reason he got a Digimon was that they look a little less like the real animals he is afraid of, but would still be a "pet" he could raise, and maybe get used to being around.

And here is our protagonist's partner! Because our protagonist is into science and space, I thought having a Vademon final evolution would appropriate.

And here is the main female character! I'm not really satisfied with her design, so she will definitely go through a lot more tweaking, but I did decide her partner would be Piccolomon/Pixiemon. She is good friends with our first male character, but finds our protagonist to be kind of pathetic. She helps him anyway, though, since she (like everyone else in their neighborhood) can't compete in the tournament. She likes having Piccolomon/Pixiemon as a partner, because it's appearance tends to put her opponents off guard.

These are all really rough concepts, but I thought I would share them anyway. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

I've been doodling here and there and writing a little bit about it, refining it, but I don't have any major content to share at the moment. It's still something I'd like to do, though, so I'm grateful for your interest! ^^

I'm going digital

Hey, all! Wanted to do something to practice a bit, so here's a tamer that would potentially show up in this story later on. No name, and his design is certainly not final (though I wonder if you can really even see him in there very well ^^'), but his partner lines would be like this:

Patamon>>Gargomon
Tsukaimon>>Devidramon

Gargomon+Devidramon=Cyberdramon

The picture in question is very much inspired by Neo from Digimon V-tamer, because I think the shots of him and two of his monsters behind him were pretty cool. :J Might see some sketches of the other tamers soon too.